


oh here I go (a casualty)

by camellialice



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff, M/M, coffee snobbery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 06:13:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18543946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/camellialice/pseuds/camellialice
Summary: Eliot wants a good cup of coffee. Quentin wants friends. They fall in love.





	oh here I go (a casualty)

Quentin stares hopelessly, helplessly, at a baffling array of buttons and knobs. 

“This might be a bit too much for your first day,” Julia says kindly, and guides him by the elbow to the register. “Try taking orders for now, and I can show you how to make drinks when it’s slower.” 

Quentin nods and squares his shoulders to face the growing line of impatient customers. Even so, the morning rush hits him like a train—he makes a million mistakes, spells almost every name wrong, gives one person twice as much change as they’d spent. It both seems to take forever and be over in a second. By the time the crowd thins out, Quentin finds himself physically exhausted. 

Beside him Julia stretches. “You’re doing great,” she says encouragingly. “I’m going to pop out for a smoke and then I’ll give you the rundown. You okay for five minutes? 

“Yeah, sure,” Quentin says, in a daze, and she gives him a thumbs up and disappears. 

Of course it is at that moment that a customer arrives. 

He doesn’t look like a real person. He certainly isn’t dressed like one. He looks like maybe a 19th century dandy, or a fairytale prince. Everything about him is smooth and swanky and ornate. He steps up to the counter and, without looking up from his phone, says, “Cortado to go.” 

“Um, okay,” says Quentin, mind reeling. Should he wait for Julia? This guy doesn’t look like he’ll spare the time. “Could I have a name for your order?” 

The man glances up at that, looks around the empty coffee shop, and then locks eyes with Quentin again. He looks like he’s trying hard to suppress a smirk. “Alcibiades,” he says. 

Quentin pauses, Sharpie hovering just barely above the surface of the cup. “Right,” he says. “Um. Could you spell that?” 

“I’m fucking with you,” the man says. “It’s Eliot. One L.” 

Quentin scrawls the name and then decides, since this seems to be an exchange of honesty, to put all his cards on the table. “I don’t have the faintest clue what a cortado is,” he confesses. 

Eliot (one L) smiles. “You don’t say.” 

“It’s my first day,” Quentin explains. 

“Uh-huh.” He looks very amused. 

“Can I interest you in a regular coffee?” Quentin offers. “Or my coworker will be back in a moment-” 

“Regular coffee is fine,” Eliot says. “Cream, no sugar.” 

Quentin pours a cup of coffee (this, at least, he can do), adds cream, and hands it over. “Thanks, have a nice day,” he says, same as he’s said a million times this morning, but he actually means it this time. 

Eliot accepts the coffee, but doesn’t leave. Instead he raises a single eyebrow and asks, “Would you like me to pay for this?” 

Quentin contemplates the feasibility of digging a hole right here through the cafe floor, climbing inside, and never facing civilization again. 

He does not vocalize this. He does, however, turn bright red and barely manage to get out, “That’ll be $2.50?” 

Eliot tips far more than Quentin deserves, flashes him another brilliant smile, and saunters out as easily as he’d come. 

Julia comes back and asks brightly, “So, how’s your first day going?” 

“It sure is going,” Quentin mumbles. 

 

 

Quentin’s not a freshman, but he knows that he looks like one, shuffling around campus with an expression of perpetual confusion. He knows how to be a college student: how to write papers, present in seminars, study for exams, talk to professors. He learned that much, at least, from the past two years of community college. But it’s one thing to be at a little community college where he knew everyone (and even went to high school with some of them) and took 10-person classes on folklore, and quite another to find his way around a big university where he knows no one and nothing. He’s never even been in a class as large as the one he’s walking to right now. 

He finds the right room based on the crowd of students swarming around it and lets himself get swept through the door with the herd. Then he sucks in a deep breath. 

The lecture hall is enormous.

Quentin always seizes up with tremendous anxiety when he’s forced to choose a seat. Whether it’s a class, a restaurant, a friend’s living room, or a professor’s office hours, if there’s more than one chair available, Quentin never knows where to sit. Now, his knees buckle. There are literally _hundreds_ of seats facing him, and they’re filling up fast. 

Before he has time to give up, to turn around and drop out of school and go back to smaller classrooms, a hand closes around his wrist and a strange voice says, “You’re with us. Come along.” 

Quentin lets himself get pulled through the throng of students over to the far left of the lecture hall. Having escaped the crowd at last, he recognizes his captor: it’s the man who came into the cafe a few days ago. Eliot. 

There’s a woman there too, texting on her phone, and she looks up when they arrive. “What’s this?” she asks. 

“This,” announces Eliot, presenting Quentin proudly, “is Coffee Boy.” 

“Oho,” she says, and sets down her phone. “Nice to meet you, Coffee Boy.” 

“Hi,” Quentin says, because he was raised to be polite. “It’s Quentin, actually.” 

“Mhmm,” she says, looking him over. Based on the intensity of her expression, Quentin fears he’s failing some test he didn’t know he was taking. Is it his outfit? (Can’t be, he texted Julia this morning to make sure it was acceptable for the first day of classes.) 

“Coffee Boy, meet Margo,” says Eliot. “Stay on her good side. She runs this shit.” 

Quentin nods, and then furrows his brow. “Sorry, which shit?” 

“All shit.” Eliot settles in the seat next to Margo. There’s another spot open, right next to him. 

Quentin decides to be bold. “Do you mind if I sit with you?” he asks. 

Eliot blinks at him. “That’s your seat,” he says, as if it were an obvious fact, as if the words “COFFEE BOY” were carved into the desk. 

“So Quentin,” Margo begins, and settles her gaze on him as he sits and pulls out his notebook. Her eyes are laser-focused, measuring, interrogating. “You a freshman?” 

“Uh, no. Transfer. Junior.” 

“Us too. Major?” 

“Comp Lit?” 

“Hmm,” she says, and points to herself, then Eliot. “Sociology, Poly Sci.” 

“Unfortunately,” Eliot groans. 

“So, Comp Lit. Shouldn’t you be past English 101?” 

“It’s a requirement,” Quentin explains. “The credit didn’t transfer from my old school.” 

“This course’ll be a breeze for you then. It’s easy enough already.” 

“You’ve taken it before?” 

Margo rolls her eyes. “We both have, but _someone_ failed it the first time around. I’m just here for moral support.” 

Eliot, whose energy has heretofore been spent lounging as successfully as one can in a lecture chair, sits up at that. “Well, maybe _someone_ failed because _someone else_ didn’t tell him there was a final exam.”

Margo folds her arms. “It was on the syllabus, dumbass,” she says fondly. “And I’m pretty sure you failed because you didn’t do any of the readings." 

Eliot waves a hand. “You say potato…”

There’s a cough from the front of the hall that signals the start of the lecture. Margo leans back in her seat again with a huff and resumes whatever she was doing on her phone. Eliot doodles on his notebook, and then on Quentin’s. He also writes a phone number along the margin and circles it three times. 

When class ends, Margo and Eliot pack up their things before most of the class has put down their pens. Eliot tousles Quentin’s hair and says, “See you Wednesday, Coffee Boy. If you need anything, we’re your orientation committee.” Then the two of them disappear. 

Quentin packs his bag more slowly, and pauses before closing his notebook. He pulls out his phone and types out a text to the number in his margin (“Hi, it’s Quentin”). 

The response is instantaneous and unintelligible, just three emojis: a crown, a peacock, a cup of coffee. 

 

 

They’re Quentin’s first friends at the school, and they seem to like having Quentin around, which frankly baffles him. He doesn’t quite understand why they’ve taken him under their collective wing, but it makes him feel special, to be chosen like this by two coolest people he’s met in his entire life. 

Margo is, of course, beautiful and a badass. But Eliot’s appeal is harder to qualify. Maybe it’s his slight detachment, his apparent disdain for hoi polloi, the confidence he exudes. Or maybe it’s the way he smiles and makes Quentin feel like he’s on top of the world. Whatever it is, Quentin feels an immediate draw to him, an almost desperate desire to please him, to be his friend. 

They start all eating lunch together after their English lecture, spreading out picnics on the campus green. Picnics with Eliot and Margo are a lavish ordeal, with olives and bread and grapes and cheeses Quentin’s never heard of. They smuggle wine in flasks and make toasts to whatever author was discussed in that day’s lecture. 

Quentin learns that Margo’s from LA, that her father is wealthy and important. He learns that Eliot is from Indiana and doesn’t want to talk about it, that he’s majoring in Poly Sci because he feels like he ought to but actually hates it. 

“Why not switch majors?” Quentin asks, and Eliot scoffs. 

“To what?” 

“I dunno. Something you actually like.” 

“Q dearest,” Eliot says, settling his head on Quentin’s knee and tilting his shades down, “my only real skills are making cocktails and drinking them.” 

“Yeah, and the mixology department here is tragically underfunded,” Margo deadpans, taking another swig from the flask. 

“Besides, what does it matter?” Eliot shrugs. “The degree is just an excuse to spend time here with you and Bambi.” 

“Aw, thanks babe,” Margo says. “More rosé, boys?” 

One day Margo and Eliot visit him at the cafe while he’s on shift. 

“Nice place, Q,” Margo says, looking around with appreciation. 

“Thanks,” Quentin says reflexively, but corrects himself. “It’s not actually mine.” 

Margo orders a latte and Eliot slouches against the counter. 

“May I have just a cup of regular coffee?” he asks with a dramatic sigh. “I don’t want to be any _trouble_.” 

Quentin frowns at him. “I can make you a cortado.” 

Eliot raises an eyebrow. “Can you, though?” 

“This is my job,” Quentin points out defiantly. He grabs a cup and heads over to the espresso machine, where Julia has already started making Margo’s latte. 

“Who are your friends?” she asks, in a mock-whisper. 

“Eliot and Margo?” 

“Ooh,” says Julia. “The famous Eliot!” 

She sweeps to the counter to deliver the drink before Quentin can react. (Does he really talk about Eliot that much? He’s mentioned him, sure, but Margo too, and everyone else he’s met in classes, right?) 

He follows her up and hands Eliot his coffee. Eliot takes a sip and swirls it around his mouth contemplatively, like a sommelier. 

Quentin worries. “Is it bad?” 

Eliot swallows. “It’s... well, I guess it’s an okay macchiato.” 

Quentin deflates. 

Eliot reaches across the counter to pat his shoulder. “Cheer up, pup, you’ll get it someday,” he says gently. “Tip for next time: Cortados don’t have frothed milk.” 

“Mind if we study here, Q?” Margo asks. 

Quentin shrugs, and they set up camp by the window, Margo in the armchair and Eliot sprawled over the couch. 

Julia nudges Quentin’s shoulder. “He’s cute,” she says. 

“I don’t think you’re his type,” Quentin warns her, and she rolls her eyes. 

 

 

Quentin practices his barista skills like he’s the fucking Karate Kid of coffee (the Coffee Boy, whispers a voice in his mind that sounds suspiciously like Eliot). He’s not going to offer Eliot another cortado unless he’s sure it’s right. He makes Julia drink dozens of trials. 

“This is a cortado,” she confirms. “Just like the last one. I’m sure it’s fine.” 

“I can’t afford mistakes. It needs to be the greatest cortado the world’s ever seen.” 

“You don’t think that’s a bit much, maybe?” 

Quentin huffs, and tries again. 

One day he comes up to Eliot doing readings in the cafe – he and Margo have taken to hanging out here, especially when he’s on shift – and slides him a drink. 

“One cortado, bitches,” he announces. 

Eliot takes a sip and smiles broadly. “I’m very proud of you, Q,” he says “You’ve managed to fill my order perfectly, and only two months late." 

 

 

They drag him to a Halloween party. The little cottage where it’s located pulses with technicolor and an electric heartbeat. Eliot locates the bar immediately upon arrival and passes Quentin a drink. The three of them sway together for a bit before Margo insists on joining the throbbing crowd of dancers, which already threatens to consume the corner they’re standing in. 

Quentin’s too self-conscious to be a good dancer, and he feels even sillier trying to dance dressed as Indiana Jones. It also doesn’t help that he’s trying to dance right next to Eliot, whose movements flow with liquid grace. Even Margo looks more composed than Quentin and she’s just phoning it in, rocking her hips robotically while craning her head to look around the room. 

“Fen’s here,” she shouts to Quentin and Eliot. It comes out as barely a whisper, swallowed by EDM. “I need go to make sure she sees me having fun without her.” She pushes up her breasts and slips away into the human tangle. 

There’s a tap on Quentin’s shoulder, and he turns around to see a girl dressed as Daenerys. She leans up on her tiptoes to ask in Quentin’s ear, “Wanna dance?” 

Quentin, who has never been in this situation before, says, “Uh,” but the word is lost in the crowd. She pulls up close to him and starts moving, and for a moment he’s lost in it, the thrum of the music and the sway of her body. But then he remembers that Eliot’s right there, that this must be really awkward for him, and pulls away with a “One second.” 

He turns back and Eliot’s not there. 

“I need to find my friend,” he shouts to the girl, and she nods. He pushes through the crowd until he comes out the other side. No Eliot to be seen. 

Another girl pulls on Quentin’s arm. She’s dressed like She-Ra. “You’re friends with Margo, right?” 

“Yes?” 

“Is she here? Don’t tell her I asked.” 

This must be Fen. Quentin nods. She points around the room: where? Quentin shrugs. 

“I like your costume,” he tells her. 

He skirts around the edge of the mob once, twice, and heads back to the bar, half expecting to find Eliot there mixing up cocktails. 

Instead he finds Margo, who hands him another drink. “Quick, pretend you’re flirting with me.” 

“Have you seen Eliot?” 

She pouts. “That’s the opposite of what I asked for. You’re useless at this.” 

He does another lap around the room. Have they been here for hours already? It’s hard to keep track of time when the music never really changes. How long has Eliot been gone? Has he left the party entirely? 

Quentin starts to feel a bit dizzy so he goes upstairs in search of a place to lie down. He pushes open the door to the first bedroom on his right only to find a couple making out on the bed. There’s a man moaning slightly, tilting his head up to the sky, as… Eliot kisses down his neck. 

Quentin feels like his skin has burst into flames. He shuts the door before either looks his way and slides down the wall beside it. He takes deep breaths, in and out, feeling oddly humiliated in ways he can’t explain. 

He shakes his head as if the memory will etch-a-sketch its way out of there, goes downstairs, and calls an Uber to go home. 

 

 

A week before Thanksgiving, Eliot asks Quentin about his holiday plans. 

“Bambi and I do Thanksgiving at our apartment every year. It’s a whole affair. Anyway, you’re welcome to join us. If you’re around.” Eliot extends the offer in that offhand, careless manner he always reserves for things he does, in fact, care very much about. 

“I wish I could,” Quentin says, and he means it. “But I have to go home. I don’t want my dad to be alone.” 

So he goes home and answers all his father’s questions about how his first semester is going, about his classes and job, about working with Julia. He remembers how, just this time last year, he had only ever lived in this one house, how he’d longed to get out and be in the city with Julia. How he’d never met Eliot and Margo, never fathomed that such people might exist. 

Quentin mentions to his father that he wants to move out of the dorms next fall, rent an apartment instead (like Eliot and Margo do). 

“Just for your senior year?” his father asks. 

“Maybe longer,” Quentin admits. “I like the city.” 

They have a few relatives in town, his grandmother and a cousin, so they all gather for a small Thanksgiving feast. It’s nice but also awkward, in the ways that meals always are with people you only see once a year. 

Eliot and Margo send him texts (Eliot) and snapchats (Margo) all night of their dinner, of their elaborately decorated apartment, of the selfies Fen left on Margo’s phone, of Eliot’s intricately latticed apple pie. The last one is a video, with an obviously wine-drunk Eliot laughing and saying, “Wish you were here, Q!” 

Quentin watches it four times, and then a fifth in his childhood bed, holding the phone above his face. He feels a pull in his gut, an urge to be there, surrounded by his friends, laughing with Eliot. 

“Miss you,” he types out, and deletes, and then types out again. He presses send and places the phone facedown on the nightstand so he can’t see any updates. 

 

 

Finals come and it’s a rush of papers and flashcards and highlighting a semester’s worth of notes. Quentin essentially lives at the cafe now, always either on his shift or studying in the corner chairs with Eliot and Margo. He goes to classes and home to sleep but otherwise stays cooped up with the constant clink of spoons and cups, the ambient aroma of coffee grounds. 

Quentin stares wistfully out the window at gently falling snow. “I wish we could go out there,” he murmurs, “instead of having to work. I wish we had time to walk through the woods in the snow.” 

“You’d freeze your dick off,” Margo says, not looking up from her laptop. 

“Is William Carlos Williams the guy who hated grocery stores or the plum thief?” Eliot asks. 

“Plum thief,” Quentin answers automatically. 

“Ugh,” Eliot groans, stretching dramatically, and throws his notebook onto the coffee table. “I’ll never keep all these names straight.” He scooches down the couch and slips his head onto Quentin’s lap. 

Quentin looks down at him. “Yes?” 

“Need caffeine. Wakey wakey.” 

Quentin sighs. “You’re such a baby.” 

Eliot looks up at him pleadingly. “Please,” he begs, “give me the wake up juice.” 

“You’re a spoiled brat,” says Margo, but then she adds, “While you’re at it, Q, I’ll have another latte.” 

Quentin sighs and pushes Eliot off his lap to go fetch drinks. Julia’s on shift right now, and she’s happy to have Quentin join her behind the bar. 

“How’s studying going?” she asks. 

“I never want to read another word,” Quentin says. 

She pats him on the shoulder. “Then you chose the wrong major, Q. How’s Eliot?” 

“Fine, I think?” Quentin’s not sure why she’s asking. Does she know he failed this course once before? 

“Okay,” says Julia. “Have you asked him out yet?” 

Quentin’s hand slips and he spills milk all over the counter. “Shit,” he yelps. “Shit fuck shit—what?” 

Julia hands him a rag. “Or has he asked you out? You can be a bit of a piner.” 

“I don’t pine.” 

“You pined for me for six years.” 

“That was high school, it doesn’t count.” Quentin starts aggressively frothing a new cup of milk, horribly certain that his ears are turning red. “I mean, I don’t pine for _him_.” 

“Oh?” says Julia with feigned innocence. “So you’ve told him about your crush?” 

“I don’t have a crush,” Quentin insists weakly. 

“Oh, sweetie,” Julia says, and kisses his cheek. 

When Quentin brings drinks back to their seats, he finds he can’t stop looking at Eliot, Julia’s words ringing in his ears. He wonders if she’s right about his crush (she’s right about most things, after all). If he does have a crush, how long has it been there, lurking just under the surface of his friendship? 

Eliot eagerly grabs his cortado from Quentin’s hand and declares, “I’d die without you, Coffee Boy.” 

Quentin’s heart somersaults out of his chest, and he has his answer. 

 

 

They go into the final exam armed with coffee and blue books, and come out exhausted and exhilarated. Snowflakes are just starting to dance down from the sky, slow and lazy, the kind of snow with no intention of being anything more than confetti. 

Quentin’s recapping the exam aloud, already assessing his own answers in his head. Eliot doesn’t respond, just tilts his head back and exhales a cloud of frost-breath into the air. “Wanna go for that walk?” he asks. 

“Walk?” 

He gestures with his head, hands still bundled in his pockets. “In the woods. In the snow.” 

Quentin blinks, then smiles. “That sounds nice.” 

They set off and all conversation peters out. As they step into the forest along the edge of campus, even the sounds of the city fade away. They stand just above the creek, watching the water rush past, and the only noise is the gurgle of the icy water. It’s peaceful. Quentin’s stream of reflections on the exam dissolves entirely. It’s the most quiet his brain has been in a while. 

It’s for that reason he doesn’t hesitate when the thought occurs to him. There’s no other voices there to shout it down, to hold him back, to come up with a thousand reasons not to do it. He looks at Eliot – the spark in his eyes as he gazes towards the water, the red tinge staining his cheeks, the snow dusting his carefully coiffed hair – thinks the words _I want to kiss him_ , and does it. 

He moves in slowly and Eliot pauses, not flinching away, not leaning forward. But the moment Quentin’s lips brush against his, Eliot melts into it, softening against the kiss like wax before kissing him back. Eliot pulls his hands out of his pocket to place them around Quentin’s face and they’re warm against his skin, the only warmth besides the heat of Eliot’s mouth. Quentin smiles until the width of his smile breaks up the kiss, and then they laugh into each other’s mouths. Quentin presses another little smooch to Eliot’s lips and Eliot catches him up in a kiss again. 

“We should go inside,” Eliot murmurs. “Where it’s warmer.” 

“Mmhmm,” Quentin agrees, and kisses him again and again and again. 

 

 

Quentin pads into the kitchen. It’s a beautiful morning, the sun streaming through the windowpane onto the countertop. He fires up the espresso machine – a housewarming gift from Julia – and lets it chug out a shot while he chews a granola bar. Then he steams some milk and pours it over the espresso. There’s something comforting about having a routine: Quentin doesn’t have to think in the mornings anymore, he just needs to stumble to the kitchen and let his body run on autopilot. 

Margo comes out of her room and leans against the counter. “Hiya Q. Mind if I get in there?” 

“All yours,” he says, popping the last bite of the granola bar into his mouth as she moves in to start her own breakfast. 

He takes the drink back to bed and nudges the lump to his left. 

“Hmph,” snorts Eliot, and turns over. His front curl flops into his face and he blinks up at Quentin with bleary eyes. 

“Good morning,” says Quentin, and kisses his forehead. “I brought your cortado." 

Eliot’s eyes go wide and he sits up. “You’re my savior,” he rasps. His voice is always so husky in the mornings, still raw from sleep. Quentin thinks it’s very sexy. 

“Just your boyfriend,” Quentin corrects, and hands him the drink. 

Eliot takes a sip and closes his eyes to savor it. “God, I love you, Coffee Boy,” he says. 

Quentin smiles and leans in for a proper kiss. 

**Author's Note:**

> “coffee boy” but sing it to the tune of “sugarboy” by st. vincent
> 
> anyway i thought we could all use some fluff in this trying time


End file.
